Good news for the Italian national team: Football is not coming home.
Ok, well, that’s not quite true, at least not yet. Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, whose anthemic track “Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home)” has been belted out by supporters of the English national team during its run to the final of Euro 2020, will not be allowed to perform the track at Wembley Stadium prior to Sunday’s match against Italy.
“There was a suggestion that we sang (‘Three Lions’) on the pitch before the final on Sunday and UEFA said it was too partisan and not fair to the Italians to have that,” Skinner told English television show The Last Leg, according to Sky Sports. He did, however, make it a point to mention that “Andrea Bocelli sang ‘Nessun Dorma’” prior to the first match of the tournament, in which the Italians took on Turkey.
The song, originally released in 1996 to celebrate Euros taking place in England that year, has become ubiquitous as the team made its way through group play and the knockout stage. While the vowel at the end of this piece’s author’s last name does, indeed, mean he is biased towards the Azzurri on Sunday, “Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home)” is extremely catchy.
The good news, at least for those who like the track, is that we can expect to hear it on Sunday at Wembley Stadium, regardless. In a comment to Reuters, a UEFA spokesperson said, “The song ‘Three Lions’… is the fan song selected by the English Football Association, and will be played during the players’ warm-up, as has been the case for England’s previous matches.”